Shootaround notes: Pietrus to stay on the bench

With Ray Allen still fighting through right ankle woes, there's a line of thought that suggests maybe Boston would be better off utilizing more Mickael Pietrus this round in order to beef up defense against Dwyane Wade. Rivers shot down the notion heading into Game 1.

"No, we’re going to stay the way we are," he said.

Rivers said he thought Allen's shot looked like it was improving, particularly after hitting two key fourth-quarter 3-points in Game 7 against the 76ers ("I do think he’s getting more and more comfortable with his shot. Obviously, we’re going to need it in this series," he said). But Rivers also admitted that managing Allen is a minute-to-minute proposition.

"We don’t know game to game with him, we don’t know how he’s feeling, then we don’t know how he’s going to deal with it during the game," said Rivers. "The way we coached him so far, is with the eye — that’s how we have to coach him. We have to watch him. If we feel like he’s moving enough to help us, we keep him on the floor. If he’s not moving enough, then we take him off the floor. Then the second decision is, do we put him back on the floor? It’s every game — in Game 7, the argument our staff was having, ‘Take him off, take him out, bring him in.’ Honestly, it’s just luck sometimes. We left him in and he made two 3s. But the hook was close, I can tell you that."

No way Doc was going to insert Mickael Pietrus into the starting line-up now. But, as we learned with Avery Bradley, the rotation and player minutes will be dictated by the flow of the game.

Pietrus needs to step up and play much better than he has in the first two playoff rounds.

As for the Heat, coach Eric Spoelstra said we shouldn't "over read" into Chris Bosh's workout yesterday. I'm guessing Bosh is at least several days away from playing.